


After Watch

by ElGato



Series: The Great War [5]
Category: DC Cinematic Universe, DCU, Justice League (2017), Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Mentor/Protégé, Post Justice League
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 18:06:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13013262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElGato/pseuds/ElGato
Summary: Personal objects can say a lot about a person. No matter if they're thousands of years old, or made of metal.





	After Watch

Leave it to Bruce Wayne to go a bit tad overboard with the Hall of Justice renovation. The formerly burned down mansion was quickly converted to a large gleaming structure of limestone and glass. Inside was beyond state of the art. As Barry Allen put it, “It’s like he bought out IKEA and Microsoft from the year 2049.”

Regardless the League members began moving in, Clark in particular bringing a cardboard box and his own coffee mug as if he was moving to a new cubicle at the office. Arthur couldn’t stop laughing at that.

Diana was the last to “move in.” She had transferred a few of her things from her office in Paris to her new desk in the Hall of Justice. Just a few personal things. Just things that were better suited for a desk of a woman of action, rather than a desk of a curator.

It was late as she moved her things, and began working on monitoring her region of the world. Bruce was out in the Gotham streets or meeting with his commissioner friend. Superman was probably with his fiance. Barry was...probably eating and Arthur really didn’t like to hang around the Hall all that much. He usually came and went with the tides. Literally.

So she was alone. Or at least for a short while.

Victor Stone had more or less disappeared after Steppenwolf’s ascent through the Boom Tube. He still kept in touch with Barry and Bruce, still willing to participate, but he wasn’t sure if he was ready to be a full fledged team member.

So it caught Diana by surprise to see him emerge from the shadows, wearing his sweats, carrying only two things: A picture frame; and an oblong shaped ball.

“H-hey Diana,” he greeted with a cautious voice that she hadn’t ever heard from him. Still, she smiled at him, turning from her monitor.

“Hello, Victor. It is good to see you.”

He smiled back, albeit briefly. She was still smiling, watching as he shuffled his feet and glanced at the desk next to hers.

“Is...is no one sitting here?” Victor asked.

Diana shook her head, “No, it’s all yours. Have you decided to stay with us?”

“I have,” he carefully placed his two objects on his desk, “I had to...talk to my dad about things and going out in public is still not really in the realm of possibility yet.”

“You should not be ashamed of who you are.” Diana always said things simply, matter-of-factly, as if anything outside of self assurance was foreign to her. It could frustrate people who were so used to being in a society that judged on outward appearances, but in many ways it soothed members like Victor and Barry--both still new to their responsibilities.

He pulled out the ergonomic rolling chair and sat down, a small smile playing at his lips. He knew that at his core he shouldn’t be ashamed, but society didn’t always make it so simple.

“What is that?” Diana asked pointing to the ball that lay behind the picture frame.

“It’s a football. You know...an American football. A guy throws it to someone, the other side tackles.”

“I know what ‘football’ is,” she chuckled. “I meant is it something special to you? It doesn’t look like it has been used.”

Victor picked up the ball and tossed it lightly in the air, “Special? No, not really. I mean it's definitely not your average football. I had this signed by Jake Waters, star quarterback for Gotham City Knights. I dreamed of being a professional football player, if I could achieve it. So, I don’t know, it’s just something I like to be reminded by, as bittersweet as it is.”

He tossed it up once more and then placed it gently by the picture frame.

“That is your family I assume. The woman next to you -- that was your mother?”

Victor glanced over at the photograph of his family, fondly, “Yeah, she was the one who took care of me. Dad was working all the time, so it was mostly me and her. My relationship with my dad has always been as complicated as you have seen, but she always managed to calm me down when I’d get frustrated with him. And then...well...I’m here and she’s not.”

Diana’s lips tightened. It was no secret that Victor’s mom died in the same accident that left him half a man--in his eyes. So many here had lost their parents, their mothers. Hers was far away, but she could feel her in her dreams. Diana was concerned when she found the signal of war from her homeland, but she felt in her veins they were still around.

But there were losses. Such sorrow...

Victor’s steel chest rose as his pistons mimicked a deep sigh, “Anyway, Diana, I wanted to thank you. For you know...talking to me. Recruiting me.”

“Do not thank me. It was Bruce’s idea,” she replied with a subtle shake of her head.

“Yeah, but--” he gave a quick glance around to make sure Bruce wasn’t listening. At the same time his computer was shutting off all recording devices in the area. “--I get the feeling I wouldn’t have joined if he asked me. He’s kind of an asshole at times. Barry is fairly oblivious to sarcasm to be affected by that and Aquaman’s huge and I’m...despite my titanium body I can get a bit sensitive.”

“Victor--”

“And you treated me like a human. I hadn’t talked to anyone outside of my dad and he seemed to be ashamed to tell anyone what really went on.”

Immediately Victor felt a bit embarrassed that he let his emotions take him, but his father and his creation was still a sensitive subject. His eyes flitted to her belongings neatly placed on her workstation. It may have been a tad surreal that a demigoddess like Diana would have such personal things that weren’t weapons or armor. Things that told of her long past.

The personal objects were held tightly in the top corner. Namely a framed photo plate, weathered and worn, very clearly showing her in her armor, surrounded by posing soldiers. A man to the left of her in particular seemed particularly close. A stern yet calm face.

Victor glanced over and his silver finger pointed to the photo on her desk. “Is this the boyfriend?”

“Mm hmm,” Diana said, watching as Victor picked up the picture frame.

His red eye glanced up at her, “He’s a good looking guy.”

“That he was. Good hearted too.” Diana’s smile widened as she gave a short chuckle, “And he fell from the sky to me.”

Seeing her smile, Victor couldn’t help but be pulled into a smile of his own, laughing with her.

She pointed to each of the figures in the photo, giving Victor a short story about each of them. She mentioned a friend named Etta as well, and told of the city of Veld. Victor was caught as he watched Diana slowly before his eyes go from the cool headed warrior to a bright vibrant woman, enthusiastic and thrilled to finally tell someone her story.

“The others would mock me for this but I truly enjoyed Charlie’s singing!” Diana confessed, beaming.

“I confess I am glad to finally tell my story,” she placed the picture frame back on the desk and picked up a thick heavy fairly old watch. “I have told Bruce before, but he only seemed to be interested in where I had been, rather than where I came from. I suppose that’s both a good thing and a...disappointing thing.”

“I’m…” Victor swallowed thickly, a bit shocked he could still do that with his current body. He also felt tinge of nostalgia. It had been so long since he sat down and related to other people. Let alone be around someone who would want to tell him about her past. “I’m glad you told me.”

She nodded and glanced down at the watch, “We are not only defined by those who raise us. Hera knows that even under my aunt’s tutelage and my mother’s warnings I had no genuine understanding of this world. It took working with others, befriending others….loving others to garner a better understanding. It was all out war, but I still cannot help but look back on my time with them...with him fondly.”

She held out the watch so he could take a look, “This is what I have left of him.”

Victor eyed the watch in his hand, remembering her conversation with him when they first met. About her trying to move on from whatever horrors she encountered.

“I know what you’re thinking Victor,” she said rigidly. “How can I move on, when I have a shrine on my desk?”

She glanced back at the photo, “Just like Superman is a beacon of hope to Bruce and the rest of mankind; Steve is that reminder for me that men can truly be and do good. And just because I want to move on, doesn’t mean I want to forget.”

“That’s something no one should ask of you," he whispered, almost feeling heartbroken. If he had a heart. “Mom always said time heals all wounds. Corny, I know, but one can hope it’s true.”

Eyes glanced down at the watch in his hand, noting the still hands of the watch. His lifted back up to the woman before him, “Do I want to know what the stopped time was?”

Her silence was answer enough.  


He lifted the watch. “I can fix it. Make it work again. If that’s what you truly want.”

Diana didn’t answer right away, but maybe her companion was onto something. Time does move forward. Preserving Steve’s death made no sense. Especially since she had memorized the time by heart.

She sucked in a breath, and nodded, granting him permission.

Victor lifted his other arm, his hand transforming with a whirr into a set of small tools. He flipped the watch, so the back was facing up and used his mechanical pliers, drills, and spindles to take the watch apart. Diana watched, breath hitching at seeing Steve’s father’s watch being dismantled. Tiny gears and timers exposed, like the opening of the insides of Steve himself. It hurt her heart just a little bit.

In a manner of seconds, though, Victor took apart the watch and put it back together again. And when he placed it back on her desk, her tuned hearing could hear the antique’s gears bring the timepiece back to life.

“Thank you, Victor,” she said in her throaty whisper that showed the incredible extent of her gratitude.

“Wrong time, though. You’ll have to reset it.”

Resetting time. To start over. As the hands ticked the seconds away, the ticking upbeat at finally being used again. Time it felt, started anew. New friends and a new team, it would be easier to move on from her past.

Yet, even as she laid the watch reverently next to her photo, remnants of the past would always remain. As they should, in her mind. Odysseus and Herakles were well remembered long after their deaths for their heroism. These heroes, both confined within the picture frame, and roaming the Hall of Justice, should be equally remembered.

“It works like a charm again,” Diana said with a smile, “It’s owner before me would be very pleased.”

“Well,” Victor leaned back, trying not to look too impressed with himself. “I have found my new body can be very handy in some cases. It would be especially handy if Bruce let me correct the numerous code violations this place has with all these computer wires.”

He made a grand gesture towards the walls and floor, where electrical wires were running this way and that. “You all could use an IT guy.”

“We could use much more from you than just technical skills.”

“I can only hope.”

Both jumped when a loud booming voice called from the entry way in the hall, “Vic! My man!”

Aquaman, to Diana’s surprise, strolled into the miniscule light within the hall, pale eyes looking particularly eager. He opened his arms wide, as if inviting the cyborg for a hug, “You are a most welcome sight, by metallic friend. We have been missing you around here.”

“You as well, Arthur,” Diana replied sardonically. The Aquaman really had no room to talk about absence from the newly formed headquarters. “Come in off the tide I expect.”

“Very,” Arthur gruffed. “Actually I would like some assistance. Some of my people stumbled on some ancient technology that unwittingly unleashed this Eldritch horror type thing in the trenches. Could use some muscle.”

Victor stood from his seat and shed his sweats. Though Arthur didn’t specifically invite him on, he figured he needed one more run at saving the world. “You  _ are  _ the muscle, Aquaman.”

“You need brains,” Diana advised. “Victor is prepared to lend that it seems.” She eyed the cyborg, silently urging him to step into the limelight again.

Victor needed no urging. Not this time. He was a part of a team now, and just like his football team, he would step up and make his place among the greatest team in the world.


End file.
